Welcome, Readers.

This tale is about a group of people who have lost everything from a world-shattering event. Their homes, friends, family………..All gone.

But through this, they’ll embark on a journey that will take them to countless worlds where they will encounter various things they believed only existed in stories and fiction.

At the end of it all, they’ll find themselves fighting to protect innocent lives so that they never experience the same horrors as they did.

This….is their story.

X

On an alternate version of Earth, our story starts with Calem Drewick, an 18-year-old male high schooler with light skin, spiky green hair, purple eyes, and a blue jacket. After a long day of school, he walked out of the doors before pulling his phone out and started texting his friends.

He finally reached his home where he was greeted by his mother and his older and younger siblings, who were watching TV and doing some drawing. Calem was just about to head upstairs until……

“Calem, you home?” Calem’s father said, coming from the basement.

“Yeah, Dad,” Calem responded.

“Mind coming down and helping out your old man?” Calem’s father said.

“(Sigh)......Sure, no problem,” Calem said, not wanting to do it after a long day but decided to it so he proceeded to the basement.

X

In the basement, Calem was helping his father move some boxes into an empty room, while talking about how their day at school and work as been. As they placed one box into the room, they started to grab another one and carry it into the room, but Calem, who couldn’t take the weight of this one, lost his grip and accidentally dropped it, spilling its contents all over the floor.

“Oh, shit,” Calem said, embarrassed with himself after his clumsy mistake. “Sorry about that, Dad.”

“Hey, no problem.” Calem’s Dad said, not affected by it at all. “Accidents happen all the time. Now, come on. Help me pick this stuff up.”

“Yes, sir,” Calem said as he and his father grabbed the stuff off the floor and placed them into a new box.

Calem continued this for a while but then stopped, seeing one item on the floor that caught his attention. It appeared to be a gauntlet with a blueish color, jade-colored lines, and a yellow spike in its middle. Amazed by it, he picked it up and examined it, looking at every part of the gauntlet. He then picked up the mysterious object and examined it, intrigued by its appearance.

“Hey, Dad,” Calem said to his father, who stopped at what he was doing. “What’s this thing?”

“What?” His father asked as he got up and took a look at the gauntlet himself, gazing at every inch of it. “Huh, strange. I have no idea.”

“You don’t?” Calem asked.

“No, It doesn’t……” His father stopped until it hit him. “Oh, now I remember!

His father started to explain to him that when he was in his twenties, he would travel around the world, exploring every ruin by some ancient civilization. On his trip to Xexinoco, he visited an old temple, and getting inside, he looked around a bit, examining the old and withered interior of the place. Entering one room, he was astounded by the various engravings and mural paintings that plagued the walls. Upon getting closer, he noticed that many of these depicted human beings bowing down and worshipping numerous humanoid beings, with angelic wings and god-like features wielding weapons. In other murals, the worshippers were seen fleeing for their lives as the god beings defended them from bizarre and terrifying monsters.

The last engraving he saw was a bit different as this one showcased the beings battling against a ghastly figure, almost looking like the Grim Reaper, with a skull-like face, bat-like wings, and wielding a scythe with many of the god beings laying dead before it as the remaining ones confronted it.

He took a few pictures of them and was already on his way out when a stranger accidentally bumped right into him. The stranger seemed panicked, almost like he was running from something, as he was holding an item covered in cloth. He asked him if everything was alright, as the stranger just looked at him, frightened. He suddenly gave him the item, which turned out to be the gauntlet. He told him to keep it safe and far away from anyone, before warning him to not put it on or else he’ll be breaking one of three seals that holds a great evil away. Just when he could ask, the stranger ran away, leaving him alone with the gauntlet.

When he got back home, he decided to do some research on the gauntlet, seeing if it belonged to any recorded civilization, but couldn’t find any leads. So, he decided to put it in the basement where it has been for the past 30 years.

“Whoa…….” Calem said, not only fascinated by the story but also the fact that he holds some ancient relic in his hand. “So, what was the big deal with the guy?”

“Who knows,” Calem’s father said. “Guy was probably some loon or something.”

“So, why’d you keep it?” Calem asked.

"No idea, just thought it would be nice, probably to remember my trip to Xexinoco by.” His father replied.

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“Huh……” Calem said, looking down on the gauntlet. “Do you…..actually believe what he said, about some great evil, sealed away?”

“That? Pfffttt!” His dad said as he started to laugh. “It’s all just some superstitious, mumbo-jumbo bullshit he was trying to sell. There’s no way something like that would exist.”

“Heh, you’re right about that,” Calem said. “Hey, do you mind if I keep this, so I could show it to my friends someday?”

“Of course, go for it.” His father said, which excited his son, but both were unaware of what awaited them……….

X

Once he was finally done with his project, Calem went up to his room, entered, and put the gauntlet on his desk. He then powered up his gaming console, turned on the TV before getting on his bed and played his video games.

X

After hours upon hours of playing video games, Calem lays down on his bed with his hands behind his head, bored out of his mind. As he was resting, he remembered the gauntlet which was on his desk. With nothing else to do, he got up from his bed and grabbed the gauntlet. After observing it for a bit, he slowly puts the gauntlet on his left arm. Calem admired how cool it looked on him and how amazed his friends will be. Suddenly, the gauntlet started to glow a bright green before releasing a flash of light, causing him to shut his eyes.

After the flash, Calem found himself on some sort of battlefield: weapons scattered everywhere, the sky covered in dark clouds, and mysterious warriors lying dead on the ground.

"What the hell is this? Where am I?!"

Calem thought to himself as he looked around the land where some kind of battle happened. As he looked around, he heard the sound of trumpets along with the sounds of marching. The marching stopped as he saw two massive armies on the left and right

The one on the left is an army of humans, each wearing different armor and wielding weapons like swords, spears, maces, axes, and some of them were seen flying in the air, doing this by supernatural means. The other army looked humanoid as well but with a variety of sizes and what was so strange about them was that they appeared…...mechanical. A horn was sounded as the two armies charged. Calem braced himself for the collision, till he found out that some of the warriors passed right through him, meaning he was in a flashback. He ran from the battle and tried to find safer ground while the two armies clashed.

When he was able to find a higher place of safety, all he could do was watch the ongoing battle: seeing the metal monsters kill the humans in brutal fashion, explosions, the armored warriors using magic to fire beams, and slicing the steel creatures to pieces. The gauntlet started to glow again as it released another flash of light, blinding him.

Calem opened his eyes as the flash died down but he found himself in another flashback: this time with three warriors of pure light coming against a warrior of evil, blanketed in darkness with white eyes. Calem watched as the three valiant soldiers fought against the evil one.

Despite being outnumbered, the dark warrior was able to hold his ground and nearly defeated the light ones. They then started chanting an unknown language before summoning chains of pure energy above them. The chains flew over to the evil warrior before wrapping around him tightly. The light warriors summoned a large portal with three sigils, right behind the dark one as he entered it. As soon as he was in, the portal vanished along with the light warriors who turned into dust and scattered away.

Once it was all over, the flashback vanished as Calem found himself back in his room. Shocked by what he had witnessed, he quickly took off the gauntlet and threw it to the floor. He could only look with great horror at the gauntlet which now lays on the floor.

X Next Morning X

Calem walked downstairs for breakfast and had an extremely tired look on his face. The reason for this is that the events he's seen in the flashbacks stuck with him through the entire night, allowing him no sleep. When he was done with breakfast, he got dressed and walked to school, still shaken from what he saw yesterday.

He arrived at the school building but he stopped to think for himself:

"Come on, man, get yourself together. What you saw yesterday….. couldn't have been real. Must've been a hallucination."

After that, he was about to open the doors till he heard some commotion from other students in the hallway.

"Holy shit!"

"Is this for real?"

He then saw some students herding together over one's phone. Curious, Calem decided to see what was up. As he joined them, he saw a student's phone showing a news broadcast with a frantic male newscaster saying the following:

"We interrupt to bring urgent news. 2 hours ago, a massive invasion has occurred on our planet, not by another country, but as the reports say "An army of monsters that look....machine-like."

The screen then changes, showing a shaky video of a city under attack with people fleeing in terror, buildings on fire, and numerous monsters killing people in violent ways, but they couldn't get a good view of what they look like. The mere sight of this horrified the students, but for Calem, this frightened him beyond belief.

"So far, they've been sieging the continents Eurobia, Afriaka, Arusia and now, North Amera and its major cities are under attack by these robotic invaders. We advise civilians to find safety and not......."

Before the newscaster could finish, the screen went black. Wondering what happened, Calem and other students check their phones, only to find out the same thing happened to theirs. Some of the students ran to their cars and tried starting them but they wouldn't turn on as well.

Just before he could fathom what was going on, he felt the ground shake. From a far distance, Calem saw massive explosions and noticed more explosions, which were closer. Suddenly, a missile from out of nowhere hit the school building and exploded, causing rubble to fly everywhere and hit nearby students. While some of the students ran for their lives, Calem stood still, paralyzed with fear. As he was consumed by it, another missile exploded close to him, sending him flying back and hitting the ground hard, knocking him out.

X

A few hours passed, Calem opened his eyes and slowly got up as his head was aching. When he came to his senses, he looked around and saw a great horror that will forever scar him: corpses littered everywhere, buildings on fire while some were reduced to ash, the blue sky was gone, blocked out by smoke as darkness filled in every corner, looking like a scene out of hell. As he looked at all the carnage around him, he suddenly thought about his family and if they were still alive.

He got up and was about to head home but stopped when he felt the ground shake and heard mechanical noises behind him. He turned around and saw 5 shadowy figures in the smoke moving towards him, which then emerged as Calem got a good look at what they were: mechanical monsters!! Two of them were humanoid in appearance and the other three had weird appearances.

He quickly hid inside a demolished house and waited for the robots to leave. The moment they left, he quickly got out and headed home only to find out that there are more of those robots out there. So, he made the long journey home while hiding from the killer robots.

X

He finally arrived home..............only to see that his entire house was burnt to the ground which caused him to fall to his knees. He quickly got up and started digging through the remains, hoping to find his family members still alive or at least find their bodies. He kept on digging until he found something.......It was the gauntlet, not his parents or one of his siblings! Tears started to stream down his face as Calem fell to his knees and started to cry.

Unknown to him, a humanoid robot who was just patrolling heard Calem's cries. It marched towards him but Calem quickly noticed it after hearing the loud footsteps. He quickly got up, tossed the gauntlet away, and ran for his life till he hit his left foot on a piece of rubble which caused him to trip and hit his left knee hard.

With his knee injured, he tried crawling away which didn't help at all. The robot caught up to him and raised its foot and was about to crush Calem like a bug. Just before he was about to experience death, the gauntlet stopped mid-air. It then started to glow and vanished. A bright light appeared before Calem, blinding him and the robot which backed away.

When the light died down, the gauntlet reappeared on Calem's left arm. The robot then started to charge at Calem who raised his left arm in fear but in doing so, fired a beam of blue lightning at the robot. It hit the robot, shocking it and frying its insides. When the beam stopped, the robot started to release grey smoke from its body before collapsing to the ground. Calem got up and he looked at the gauntlet with such amazement.

"What the hell…...is this thing?"

He said just before he felt the ground start to shake violently and form a giant crack behind him. He lost his footing and nearly fell into it if it wasn't for a bent stop sign which he grabbed onto. When he attempted to pull himself up, the stop sign snapped which caused him to fall. While he was falling, a massive portal opened in mid-air below him. As he entered the portal, it vanished, leaving his fate unknown and his world burning...

Where has Calem gone? What is the mysterious gauntlet he now wields? What's the evil mentioned on the altar? Stay tuned next time to find out!